The present invention relates to a power-and-free trolley conveyor of the floor type.
With such trolley conveyors, power line discontinuous portions for joining together or diverting conveyor carriers are usually provided with a carrier propelling apparatus which is driven independently of the drive chain for power trolleys to transfer the carriers. However, installation of the carrier propelling apparatus involves the problem of necessitating a very high equipment cost. Further according to the conventional practice, a carrier stopping at the power line discontinuous portion is transferred by being pushed from behind with a pusher dog which is disengaged from the following carrier, but this method of transfer has the problem of generally taking time and being inefficient. Further at a distance before the carrier joining or diverting portion, the conveyor line to which carriers are to be transferred is usually provided with a stopper device which is generally adapted to disengage the pusher dog from the carrier on opposite sides of the conveyor line and which therefore has the problem of being large-sized and costly.